McConnell Shut Down Bi-Partisan Bill to Protect Mueller from Trump

"It would not hurt if we passed legislation to send a message to the White House that we want the investigation to continue", Sen.

"I've just got to do what I can do", he said. He made his position abundantly clear on Tuesday: "I'm the one who decides what [legislation] we take to the floor. And we'll not be having this on the floor of the Senate", McConnell said Tuesday on Fox News.

A small band of Republicans has emerged to support a bill that would give a fired special counsel 10 days to request an expedited judicial review on whether the termination was for "good cause".

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) slammed McConnell's decision, saying, "It's a mistake not to pass legislation to protect the investigation". The legislation, written by the Republican senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of SC, and the Democratic senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Chris Coons of DE, would codify regulations limiting who can fire a special counsel.

More recently, Trump and some of his associates have sought to reshuffle the officials in Mueller's orbit as an alternative to firing the special counsel directly.

"I don't think he's going to fire Mueller, but I think institutionally it would be nice to have some protections", Graham said Tuesday.

At least three of the 11 GOP members of the Judiciary panel have said they will vote against it and another five have said they have questions about its constitutionality.

Last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that would make it harder for Mueller to be fired for investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

"We had an agreement with the Democrats", McConnell said of the legislation, which was negotiated among the top Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate.

But McConnell emphatically said he would not hold a floor vote on the legislation.

McConnell said "there's no indication that Mueller's going to be fired", echoing his previous assertions on the matter.

"It's not necessary in my judgement", McConnell said.

Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich said Democrats aren't truly interested in avoiding a "constitutional crisis", but are more concerned with protecting their political talking point of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian Federation.

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